Politico reports Eric Cantor is escalating his brinksmanship over the debt ceiling:
One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP “will not grant their request for a debt limit increase” without major spending cuts or budget process reforms.
Ezra Klein points out that it's a bit odd to hear Cantor whine about the debt ceiling given that the budget plan they just passed would add $6 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, and it would do so in a fashion inconsistent with the things they are "demanding" in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
House Republicans voted to make the Ryan budget law. But the Ryan budget includes $6 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years, which means that to become law, the Ryan budget would require a substantial increase in the debt ceiling. But before the Republicans agree to increase the debt ceiling so that the budget they passed can become law, Republicans are demanding the passage of either a balanced budget amendment that would make the Ryan budget unconstitutional or a spending cap that the Ryan budget would, in certain years (and if you’re using more realistic numbers, in all years), exceed.
As I noted last week:
If Republicans were serious about treating this as negotiating leverage, they would need to offer a credible alternative to raising the debt limit. But they can't, thanks not only to the fact that they did not propose nor pass a balanced budget, but also to the fact that they have agreed to a budget that will add $1.6 trillion to the national debt.
Republicans love to talk about reducing spending in the abstract because talking about magical spending cuts is easy. They love to posture on the debt ceiling because debt is unpopular. But they have yet to offer a serious alternative to increasing the debt ceiling. And they have yet to propose, let alone pass, a single budgetary measure that is consistent with the types of ransoms they claim to demand.